02-20-2005, 03:52 PM -
After using TLB for a little while it seems that the ContextMenu/ButtonProperties/... menus could probably be combined together into a more cohesive interface.
Perhaps you could create a global preferences dialog which has an explorer-style tree on the left (with a top level "All" folder containing each of your quickbars), and on the right the various preferences pages (tabbed interface?). This would let you see all your folders in one tree, and you could group-select all or any part of the tree, then choose your settings on the right-hand side and apply them.
I think this could also make it clearer which TLB settings and properties can be specified on a per-menu/per-item basis, and which are just global settings.
For example, we have the Customize Menu prefs pages, which have the "Apply to THIS/CHILD folders" checkboxes -- so pref "inheritance" exists here. Then there is the Context Menu prefs page (in TLB Settings) which has default context menu settings (global), then within Button Properties you can set the context menu settings on a specific item, but there are no "THIS/CHILD" checkboxes in this area.
I would suggest not doing any kind of automatic "inheritance" of preferences at all, but instead just add the tree-view preferences editor. This will let people selectively 'inherit' (copy) their prefs to whichever menus or submenus they like.
I don't think people are really going to need automated inheritance, once you set up your TLB you aren't going to change it that often, and it's just unneeded complexity. Managing your inheritance rules would probably end up being more involved than just making the changes manually (think about Windows ACLs management for novice users).
Perhaps you could create a global preferences dialog which has an explorer-style tree on the left (with a top level "All" folder containing each of your quickbars), and on the right the various preferences pages (tabbed interface?). This would let you see all your folders in one tree, and you could group-select all or any part of the tree, then choose your settings on the right-hand side and apply them.
I think this could also make it clearer which TLB settings and properties can be specified on a per-menu/per-item basis, and which are just global settings.
For example, we have the Customize Menu prefs pages, which have the "Apply to THIS/CHILD folders" checkboxes -- so pref "inheritance" exists here. Then there is the Context Menu prefs page (in TLB Settings) which has default context menu settings (global), then within Button Properties you can set the context menu settings on a specific item, but there are no "THIS/CHILD" checkboxes in this area.
I would suggest not doing any kind of automatic "inheritance" of preferences at all, but instead just add the tree-view preferences editor. This will let people selectively 'inherit' (copy) their prefs to whichever menus or submenus they like.
I don't think people are really going to need automated inheritance, once you set up your TLB you aren't going to change it that often, and it's just unneeded complexity. Managing your inheritance rules would probably end up being more involved than just making the changes manually (think about Windows ACLs management for novice users).
Joel Thornton